Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison


Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison, Jr. was a prominent American Beaux-Arts and Gothic Revival architect.

Early life

He was born in Brooklyn, New York City in 1872. Murchison graduated from Columbia University in 1894 and from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France, in 1900.

Career

Two years after graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts, he opened an office in New York where his first major commissions were for railroad stations for the Pennsylvania Railroad company. Among the stations he designed are Hoboken Terminal in New Jersey; the Lackawanna Terminal and the Lehigh Valley Terminal, both in Buffalo, New York; and Baltimore Pennsylvania Station.
In New York, he was well known as one of the founders of the Beaux Arts Balls, elaborate costume parties benefiting architects who had fallen on hard times. He also was a founder of the Mendelsohn Glee Club. At the time of his death, he had started work on a new Dunes Club to replace the one destroyed a few months earlier.

Personal life

On April 5, 1902, Murchison married Aurelie de Mauriac. They lived in the Beaux-Arts Apartments, which he designed, at 310 E. 44th St. They were the parents of two daughters:
  • Katherine Murchison, who married Hays Browning.
  • Aurelie Murchison, who married Edouard de Wardener.
Murchison died suddenly, at 11:45 p.m. on December 15, 1938, while at the Interborough Rapid Transit Company's Grand Central–42nd Street station, as The New York Times reported.

Buildings

He also designed: